Avoiding panic during pandemics: COVID-19 and tourism-related businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought devastating impacts of an unprecedented scale to tourism-related businesses due to governments instituting mobility restrictions and business closures worldwide. In this research, we present the results of a survey involving 1212 tourism-related businesses in Jiangxi province, China, in late February 2020. The survey covered various topics, including (1) self-evaluated effects of COVID-19, (2) business responses, (3) social responsibility behavior, and (4) anticipated government policies. Findings from mixed-effects (ordered) logit models revealed that small-sized businesses appear particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. Social responsibility behavior is determined by business size, local pandemic circumstances, and local tourism dependence. Different businesses favor distinct government aid policies. Based on estimation results from our econometric models, we plotted a policy positioning matrix to identify appropriate policy measures for diverse businesses.